Cathryn Lande Selmer - Brown

Musician, performer, music therapist and advocate of the learning-disabled, Kay Lande Selmer Brown, passed away on November 20,2022. Born in Westerleigh to Norwegian immigrants, Agnes and Baard Lande, she received her first music scholarship to study voice at the Metropolitan Opra House Studios when she was 11 years old. She attended P.S.30 and Port Richmond High School. Then she attended the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester and then the Juillard School of Music in New York, learning to sing in seven languages while helping to pay her tuition by working days as a medical assistant at the Holland Tunnel.

Her career in show business associated her with Arthur Godfrey, Kay Kyser, Frank Sinatra, Vaugh Monroe, Bill Cullen, John Reid King of “Chance of a Lifetime,” Paul Tripp of “Mr. Imagination,” and “The Birthday House,” Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, Mitch Miller, Gene Kelly, Celest Holm, Bob Fosse, Jack Cassidy, Morey Amsterdam, Jimmy Durante, Ray Heatherton of “The Merry Mailman,” Don Ameche, John Conte, Bob Keeshon of “Captain Kangaroo,” Bob Hope, and Jim Henson and the Muppets and the Sesame Street cast. She helped produce many commercials for television and radio. She produced numerous albums for Columbia Records and records for adults and children including the Golden Records so. She sang the theme song for the television show “Flipper”.

She a parody of songs during the pregame show when Bobby Thomson later hit the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” that vaulted the Giants into the 1951 Worlds Series.

Proud of her Norwegian ancestry she had preformed for King Harold and Queen Sonja of Norway and in 1986 was the Co-Grand Marshall with Mayor Edward Koch at the Norwegian

Independence Day Parade in Brooklyn.

Her work for both the physically and mentally handicapped in pediatric and geriatrics deserves special mention. She was a pioneer in music therapy whose results with the handicapped have been widely recorded

Kay’s was successful in proving that her Norwegian ancestors produced the copper for the Statue of Liberty. The Visnes mine of the Norwegian Island of Karmoy was on family-owned land. In 1865 the mine was sold by her great-grandfater to a French company. With the aid of the people on Karmoy she was able to produce conclusive proof that the copper supplied from Karmoy to the sculptor Frederic Bartholdi, was used to create Miss Liberty. A slab a copper and granite from the mine by Karmoy officials was delivered on the Norwegian tall ship ‘Sorlandet’ and placed on Liberty island, as a permanent memento to the origin of the metal included her name.

In 1994 she was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for her distinguished contributions to this country, and preserving our country’s diverse ethnic heritage.

She was a member of ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Artists and Publishers, and the American Association of Music Therapists and a charter member of the M.E.H., Music Education for Handicapped (Internationaal). She volunterred at the Staten Island Mental Health Society and nursing homes. Among the many honors that have come to her is a Distinguished Service Medal from the United Cerebral Palsey of New York and no less han seven awards for composing given her by ASCAP. She was also honored by the Viking Society of the New York Police Department.

She was elected to the Port Richmond High School Hall of Fame in 2011.

She was a member of Nansen Lodge No.410 Sons of Norway, and the Richmond Chapter of the Ladies of the Easter Star, and was president of the Ladies Aid at Our Savior Lutheran Church in West Brighton.

She enjoyed cooking, travellling and entertaining. She taught voice and piano from her home, and would include her students in her performances.

She was married for 47 years to Edward N. Selmer from Emerson Hill, and in 2010 she married her high school sweetheart William Brown of Snug Harbor. She is pre-deceased by her daughter Kathryn Selmer Sheeler. She is survived by her son Neil B.Selmer, a sister Annie Lewis and 6 grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held for her at Harmon Funeral Home on January 7th for 2 to 6pm. In leiu of flowers please send a donation to a charity of your choice.